I got an email about a new Portofino in 37mm and was excited til I found out it was only womens. Really hate that IWC just went nuts with the sizes of their watches. Really hope they make some smaller Portoguese next year, preferably in black and rose gold!

I got an email about a new Portofino in 37mm and was excited til I found out it was only womens. Really hate that IWC just went nuts with the sizes of their watches. Really hope they make some smaller Portoguese next year, preferably in black and rose gold!

I get the RO likeness but as I said, I don't get it because they tried to move away from ROs design. And if you give AP credit for the porthole then give credit to Hublot for using a rubber strap then when AP uses them which made it closer looking to Hublot then you have to give AP flack too. Biver also clearly stated that they didn't make the distinction between the two until AP used rubber straps on their RO line. ROs main competition was the Nautilus back then but after AP used straps and they looked more similar to Hublots then that is when the comparisons began to grow and Hublots get shit on even though they were already in the dumps. Then the rise out of obscurity and become a huge success and they get blasted because most do not know that history. Most of those who hate Hublot (again not just in this forum) doesn't even know that it is a 34 year old company, plenty thinks they just sprung up out of nowhere to copy APs Royal Oak design.

Again the wathces inspirations are the same and their first incarnation are already similar so any update will have similarities too. If Hublot just make their cases bigger and blows it up, that is what you see in the big bang, I can easily see that. The shape is there in the lugs, the case and that plastic/kevlar part of the case that protrudes on the side, those are all distinctly Hublot from the old to the new. Hublot still has it's roundness while the RO is overall angular. I am not going to lie and say there isn't some RO int here but you also can't say there aren't any Hublot in AP even if the only credit you can give them is the rubber strap.

Fact is if you say something that sounds or reads condescending, then there is something there even if you don't see it and just like you say that the statement might be too blunt for me then don't take what I say as being too blunt either. I did not say you condemned someone to hell, I said you acted like I did if someone doesn't like Hublot by saying....
Again, that can sound condescending and whether you say "bluntly" or whatever, it made it sound like I am saying that people shouldn't be free to hate Hublot when that is not what I am saying at all. Of course all are free to like or hate what they want for whatever reason they want to but I am saying I do not agree with those reasons and gave a different point of view because I do view the history differently. I don't get that hate because I don't see them pretending to be AP and if that is truly the case why they hate the brand, then so be it but don't be mad if I wanted to further the discussion to get deeper into it and to see whether knowing the real history would change their mind. If their mind doesn't change, then again, oh well. At least now they know there is a different side of the story, if they don't believe it, no big deal. At least i know.

BTW, I am on the SWD side of the forum most of the time so you may not know but that is just how I post. Don't mistake that long reply as a rant or being "mad", that's just how I roll!

I'm glad to hear that you are not angry. I'm not either. Watch discussions don't personally upset me, I usually find the disagreements/discussions entertaining.

As you know I did credit Hublot for being the first to use rubber straps on their watches. However, other companies started using rubber straps on their watches before AP did. The original PP Aquanaut used a rubber strap, and now everyone from Patek, VC, AP, BP, Breguet, Cartier, Omega, GP, Breitling etc, offer watches on rubber straps. The difference is, I don't think any of those particularly look like or were designed to resemble a Hublot. Also, while the PP Nautlius also uses a porthole as its inspiration and is closely related to the original RO, having the same designer, Genta, and the same base movement, it manages to look separate and distinct from the RO. In addition, the RO was conceived roughly 9-10 years before Hublot existed, so it wasn't a matter of the RO being influenced by the Hublot.

As for the statement "Biver also clearly stated that they didn't make the distinction between the two until AP used rubber straps on their RO line. " I'm not really clear on what that is supposed to mean. Perhaps there isn't enough context there. I'm not sure if that is saying they didn't see the 2 as being similar, or that they didn't think their watches looked like ROs until ROs were offered on rubber straps? However, if that statement is supposed to mean, that they moved further away from the RO design once they saw ROs being offered on rubber straps, I'm sorry but I just don't see his statement as true. Just because he says that doesn't make it true. The proof isn't in his statement its in their products. The Big Bang looks a lot like ROOs, and not just because of rubber straps. If you look at the history of the ROO, the Offshore was being offered with rubber pushers and crown when it initially was released in 1993, and I know that RO Offshores were already being offered with rubber bezels and other components as early as 2001/2002...which is 2-3 years before the Big Bang was released. So all of Hublot's technical prowess in using other materials and incorporating them into bezels and pushers and cases followed AP's use of them for those areas.

I'm not saying that the Big Bang doesn't look at all like their early line of watches. Just that it has morphed into something that looks too similar to a RO/ROO. If we look at others from the big three VC's 222 eventually evolved into the Overseas. I don't love the current design, but one can see a few elements of the 222, and it doesn't look like some other company's product. The same could be said of PP's Auqanaut and its relation to the Nautilus.

Its not to say that other companies have not copied or come too close to the RO for my liking, GP's original Laureato being one of them. It has also grown into something quite silly looking last time I saw one. However, here is their original version. It actually looks like an odd hybrid between a RO and a Nautilus.

In the end I think its safe to say, you and I will simply have to agree to disagree on APs and Hublots.

A final word, perhaps the morphed versions of watches in general are not my thing. As I think about it, I like the original RO line, not the Offshore. I like the Nautilus, not the Aquanaut, I like the VC 222 but not the current Overseas, and I even the original Hublot looked decent in all gold when it was a sleek, slim watch on a woman (I was never crazy about the original on a man), but I have never liked the Big Bang.

As you know I did credit Hublot for being the first to use rubber straps on their watches. However, other companies started using rubber straps on their watches before AP did. The original PP Aquanaut used a rubber strap, and now everyone from Patek, VC, AP, BP, Breguet, Cartier, Omega, GP, Breitling etc, offer watches on rubber straps. The difference is, I don't think any of those particularly look like or were designed to resemble a Hublot. Also, while the PP Nautlius also uses a porthole as its inspiration and is closely related to the original RO, having the same designer, Genta, and the same base movement, it manages to look separate and distinct from the RO. In addition, the RO was conceived roughly 9-10 years before Hublot existed, so it wasn't a matter of the RO being influenced by the Hublot.

Definitely just got to agree to disagree. I still think the big bang looks more like the classic than it does a Royal Oak, only real similarities are that Hublots just got bigger and pretty much expanding/stretching the features of the old classic Hublots than changing anything to look more like Royal Oaks. And I'd give you the number of screws but even then ROs screws aren't exactly round either.

A last comment though, I didn't say the rubber strap gave birth to other brand trying to make watches to resemble a Hublot, just simply giving them credit for what has become a popular and useful strap choice. Expecting all watches that uses a rubber strap to copy or resemble Hublot would be like saying any watch who tried to make a waterproof case after the oyster case is trying to make a watch resembling a Rolex. I did not even say anything close to that. lol

I also never said RO was influenced by Hublot but if you are going to accuse Hublot of copying ROs despite the fact that they tried their best to be different, then you should be able to accuse AP of trying to copy Hublot by using a rubber strap or people should at least give them the same flack for it but instead people blamed Hublot for copying AP more instead especially when the big bang was revealed. I am sure AP knew what they were doing there too, not that they planned to copy Hublot but they knew Hublot had it first and there will be further resemblance between them but since they are the bigger and more popular brand they got the benefit of a doubt and when Hublot was reborn, they became the copy cats including using a rubber strap that originated with them.